


The Conman and the Moron

by love2imagine



Category: White Collar
Genre: Spoilers for First Episode of Season 6...sort of. Alternate beginning, middle and ending...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-25 00:10:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2601434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love2imagine/pseuds/love2imagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Couldn't stand it...just couldn't stand it! I say : Spoilers for Season 6 Episode I, but really...this, I couldn't let it go, so I wrote an alternate...well, most of the episode, so not a lot of spoilers here! PadyandMoony chatted about this, gave each other ideas, so I thank her for the start of this little story.</p><p>Neal is kidnapped...and then things start to go wrong. But not for him.</p><p>I do not own WC, because if I did I'd fire ...okay, let's be nice...I do not own White Collar or the canon characters, though I sincerely wish the WC fan fiction writers did, Jeff Eastin created them. Perhaps USA or Fox network actually owns their dubious rights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Conman and the Moron

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PadyandMoony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PadyandMoony/gifts).



 

 

Neal was almost thrown into a chair – ‘ _a wheeled chair, it moved’_ he thought _,_ and they taped his feet and ankles rather awkwardly to it. They’d used cuffs with a long chain between, which should make his chances better. _They seem odd cuffs, where had they acquired them…a sex-toy shop?_

 

Footsteps left. He started to feel the chair he was taped to. This was probably his best chance…but no, now other footsteps, just one set, approached. He listened to his heart. He’d felt this before, but seldom.

 

Neal was angry. Neal was very, very angry.

_Too many people playing me. Too many people using me, letting me down. If I can, I’ll make this guy pay. His goons rough-handled me just for the fun of it._

Neal knew his limitations. He didn’t acknowledge many of them, but one of them was an aversion to making anyone pay physically.

_I’ll make sure he regrets it, somehow._

 

The footsteps stopped just in front of him and the bag was ripped off his head.

 

_I’ll bet I’ve got bag-head, to say nothing of friction burns on my nose. Oh, this guy is going to pay. Somehow._

The guy who had the audacity to kidnap Neal Caffrey, a ward of the FBI, looked just as though he should be on The Voice, auditioning in the hopes that Blake Sheldon would pick him for his team. The same guy who had been following him, probably just waiting for him to be alone.

 

Neal made his best opening move, pretending he was so _very_ pleased to be kidnapped and removed from the FBI, his anklet cut.

 

He quickly tumbled to the fact that this was Rebecca’s pilot and that he wanted the Big Blue Diamond for himself.

 

_If he expects Peter to care enough about me to break the law and steal it for him, he’s going to be very disappointed and I’m going to be more broken than the law ever was. Long way down that elevator shaft. I’m not sure any more if Peter would go out and buy Pizza to get me freed, honestly. Rebecca knew about Peter – he didn’t rat me out as a CI at our dinner, but boy did she oversell our friendship to this guy!_

Neal watched and listened and tried to wrap his head around Booth’s plan.

 

“You want me to go into the Bureau and take the diamond and bring it back here for you?” he asked Booth, wondering if he was missing something.

 

“Yes. I need it for my audition.”

 

“I heard you on the phone. You’re auditioning for the Pink Panthers, and a diamond seems the perfect ‘gift’. But the FBI will be here any minute, we need to move. I don’t want to go back, I told you. I’m free – of them, at least – I want to keep it that way. We can deal later!”

 

“They’ll never find this place.”

 

“Look, the obvious person to come after me is Rebecca – Rachel. Did she know about this place? Yes? And if I know she’s the obvious choice, so do the FBI, and they have access to her. She’s smart. _She’ll_ make some deal and they’ll be here – surprised they aren’t already.”

 

His certainty convinced Booth and by the time the FBI burst in, in large numbers, the pair was watching from a safe distance.

 

“I can get you the diamond,” Neal said, “for a price.”

 

“Hey – you’re my prisoner, Caffrey, remember?”

 

“Ah, yeah – I know. I’ve got the handcuffs, you’ve got the gun. But I don’t care about the Panthers, I just want a way out of town. I know you have one, any great criminal has several in place at any time.”

 

Booth smirked.

 

Neal paused. “Let me think a moment”

 

_I could tell him the diamond’s a no go – does this moron think it’s just lying around for any convict on work release, without his tracking anklet, to pick up and pocket?_

 

_And if I could get my hands on it, what is going to force me to come back to him? At least I wasn’t captured by someone with brains!_

_So convince him the diamond’s unavailable, break into the Pink Panthers and pull off something incredible for him – and then gift him to the FBI, to Peter._

_Or **I** could go into the Panthers instead. Openings in that organisation don’t come up very often, and they are very choosey. They’ll get me out of town! Great step up in the criminal world, huge scores - **but** I don’t like teams. Don’t like hierarchies. People stepping on each other – like the government. God, now I sound like Moz. Hope Moz is okay…hope Peter didn’t cuff him and drag him off and question him…no, Peter’s not that stupid. He’d never think I‘d run without Mozzie…_

_…and the Panthers are known for offing people they don’t need or if one of them just feels a little ticklish about someone. Or if they need a fall guy._

_I could go in as a con – sting, that’s it! Take Booth’s place, get in to the Panthers, make a new deal with the FBI, my freedom for the organisation. They must really want them…look good for…oh, look good for a new handler. Maybe Jones, but unlikely after what Peter told him. Diana? I’d like to do her a favour._

_It’s a huge risk…from the infiltration of their lair, all the way through the sting I could get killed, maimed. My new handler might not protect me – Peter always did that if he could, give him that. They might even say I was serious about joining and use it to throw me back in prison._

_No – DC wants me on the job. Forever. And ever._

_I don’t think I want to risk another deal with the FBI. They’ve reneged over and over. The commutation, Kramer, this last mess._

_No, I think I’ll take my chances. Like I said to Booth, he’s got me out, got me free…the FBI knows I was taken. Kidnapped. I’m a victim at present, gives me a bit of time! They know I was held here, in New York. That’s a perfect misdirect. Why would he keep me here if he wanted me somewhere else? They’ve got to think I’m still in New York and going to be used here._

_They have nothing to hold Mozzie on. He’s smarter than I am, and he didn’t have anything to do with this, all his new stuff is safe. All I have to do is get to a phone. Looks like Mozzie was right all along – burn New York. Lovely and all, but I need my freedom and I need it now. I told him I could never come back here once I left, but now the choice is clearer, simpler – if I’m here, I’m a prisoner of the FBI. Forever._

_I’ll come back in a year or two, these new disguises are not only easy to make on a 3-D printer – which Mozzie’s got – but comfortable to wear. Peter will be immersed in DC, no-one will much care for a CI who got kidnapped and probably killed._

 

Neal turned, his blue eyes intense, his voice full of confidence. “Okay, I’ll need you to help me get into the FBI building. Then just wait for me outside. I can’t evade you, you can shoot me and take the diamond if I try to run once I’ve got it.”

 

“What help?”

 

“A diversion, nothing too difficult. How about we steal a car and set it alight opposite. People love a fire!”

 

“Yeah. You go in and – what? It’s in Evidence?”

 

“Probably in the ASAC’s safe at present. I’m good with safes. It’s an older model. No problem. I’ll be in and out in half-an-hour, hour tops.”

 

“I’m on a clock here, Caffrey.”

 

“I know, I know. I’m sensitive to your needs, man. After all, you hold my life in your hands, and my freedom.”

 

“Don’t you forget it.”

 

 

It didn’t take long to get the few things they would need. They went into a small pharmacy for some, into an camping place for a few more. They parked the stolen vehicle, a tangerine Hummer (the bigger, brighter and more expensive they are, they more attention the fire attracts) across from the New York offices of the Bureau.

 

Neal had insisted that he drive so often that he was in the back seat, cuffed to the seat-belt mounting. _Rebecca didn’t actually know all my skills…well, criminal skills_ …(Neal smirked a little to himself) _so this goon doesn’t either._ Booth was looking across at the target and couldn’t see Neal unless he turned.

 

Neal slipped the cuffs, passed the chain through the other seat belt and clicked the cuffs together, then tossed the chain over Booth's head so it settled round his neck and pulled the seat-belt as tight as possible in a single, fluid movement that left Booth gasping and scrabbling at the chain. He was almost sorry for the guy. He leaned in the front seat, took the gun and shut all the windows and doors. Booth was struggling, but wouldn’t actually choke.

  _I don't think._

Neal had lifted some lipstick and hair mousse when they’d picked up latex gloves and bleach (always useful just in case), and had used the mousse in the men’s room. They’d used the gloves – black, not too obvious, he was just being super-careful about prints, and the mousse should stop any stray hairs. And, of course, if no-one acted in time, small inflammable things like hairs and fingerprints weren’t going to matter…but – FBI. Peter wasn’t there, but there were enough agents with hero-complexes. He wasn’t really worried about Booth. _Let him get a bit of a scare!_

 

He wrote on the window in the lipstick, the exact colour Rebecca favoured **:**

 

“THIS IS THE GUY WHO LEFT ME TO ROT – NOW SEE HOW HE LIKES IT – R T

 

“You did, you know, Booth. You just flew off into the blue. Then you kidnapped me – _me!_ Be thankful, Booth. If you’d got into the Pink Panthers, you wouldn’t have lasted a month. Be very, very thankful.”

 

Neal threw bleach all over the back seat, as though to contaminate blood evidence, followed it with some kerosene and lit it. Then he walked away calmly, just enough pace to make sure he didn’t stand out to New Yorkers. Booth started to yell in horror.

 

Neal took out Booth’s cell phone – _what an amateur!_ He could use it to text-message, so the GPS was enabled. _Amateur!_

 

However, there was always a burner phone for drop-messages that no-one knew about but Mozzie and himself. He left a message: ‘Gone. See ya. Sorry I couldn’t say goodbye.’ He tossed the phone into an open dumpster.

 

He jogged to one of Mozzie’s storage containers. He pulled on gloves and changed out of his clothing and dressed up a pillow covered in a plastic trash bag, making sure the clothing was lying as it would on his body. He regretfully stabbed it repeatedly with the large carving knife.

 

He went to the fridge and took out six bottles of beer…well, one was just a bottle of beer, the other five contained his blood. He had never been more pleased to have befriended one shorter, paranoid, very diligent conman with endless crazy ideas and perhaps more useful ones.

 

About every month since his work release, Mozzie had come round to June’s and taken the equivalent of about 2 1/2 beer bottles-full of his whole blood, and kept them in this authentic blood-bank fridge. He had also supplied special chelated iron supplements, and Neal had never felt the worse for it.

 

Mozzie said he had a large volume of blood for his weight, since he was athletic and kept in very good shape, and that given the iron and protein it needed, his body would adapt to making enough blood and he seemed to be correct. There was an extra bottle that Mozzie kept just in case, and it was a little older, but hopefully it would make it look very sure that one Neal Caffrey had bled out.

 

He carefully held the suit inside another plastic bag and doused blood over the stab marks, letting it run down the front of the suit and into the shoes…quite a lot into the shoes, the socks stuffed inside.

 

He pulled out the pillow and its trash bag covering and stowed them in their own garbage bag and shoved the gloves in with them. He went to the freezer and took out two hairs from the bag carefully labelled Phoenix…Mozzie’s code name for a man who had been antagonistic to himself and Mozzie at one time. There were other bags labelled with the names of other odd mythical creatures, but this man was dead, or presumed so, so the hairs would keep the LEO’s guessing and take some of the heat off Booth!

 

He grinned to himself. He wasn’t sure how Mozzie had got hold of the hairs, now he thought about it…but they went onto the suit’s shoulder and he bundled up the suit and shoes in that other bag.

 

He pulled on his ‘homeless man outfit’. It wasn’t dirty as Mozzie’s was…couldn’t bring himself to wear something that smelled as Mozzie’s did. Mozzie was pure Method – but this would do. He splattered some of the beer over the clothing. That should put most people off if they got too close! The stained running shoes looked worse than they were: he _could_ run in them if necessary.

 

He put his bagged suit and shoes in one of the shopping carts left there for a time such as this and added a few other trash bags full of miscellaneous items for camouflage purposes, including one containing the bottles with the rest of his blood, another small bottle, the knife and the pillow, another containing one of his Fedoras. Then, pocketing one of the forty or so burner phones of various colours and ages, along with a voice-changer, and making sure to limp slightly, he left the container and locked it after him.

 

He walked slowly down alleys and across streets, his old and tatty hat pulled down, muttering to himself. He was good at running…but people never looked for a fugitive on the lam walking slowly and painfully behind a shopping cart.

 

The building Rebecca had used for her headquarters wasn’t too far away, so he chose a nice, clean alley next to some apartments, with no video surveillance or over-looking windows. There was a trash bin and it was practically empty. Good! It wouldn’t be emptied again for some time!

 

He pulled on new gloves and wiped the bin lid clean of his fingerprints. He poured the blood artistically over the floor near the trash bin, making sure to smear some on the green paint where it showed up nicely, using the bag to do it. He threw the bag with the suit and shoes into the bin and closed it…and returned the bottles and gloves and everything not necessary to the crime scene to the garbage bag containing the murdered pillow and pushed it down into the shopping cart. It contained the small bottle of lacquer thinners.

 

Then, with great ceremony and sadness, he placed his Fedora almost behind the bin. Someone might see it and go off with it, but it was in dark shadow. He tottered his vagrant way down a couple more alleyways, taking a torturous route back towards the container, looking in bins along the way and making useful-looking additions to his cart.

 

After three blocks he pulled out the burner phone and the voice changer and made a call to one of the anonymous tip-lines that, Mozzie said, contravened the rights of the public to face their accuser – but useful for times such as these – and told them of a violent fight heard in the staged alley.

 

After another few blocks, in a nice gravelly vacant lot he emptied the bottle of thinners into the pillow, wiped the cart handle and lit the bag. Spectacular! He ran a few blocks and, making sure he hadn’t been followed, he slipped quietly away.

 

Back at Mozzie’s container, he stripped off the beer-soaked outer clothing gladly, took some snacks and water and sat for a little while, quickly considering next moves. He dressed in baggy jeans, a polo shirt and a long hoodie and picked up the suitcase with clothing, personal care items, fake passport, credit cards, quite a lot of cash and a book to read, as well as tourist info on Taiwan.

 

Then he took a cab out of the city going south, and after that it was child’s play to make his way north and west, pick up another go-bag and a totally different look, find a shady boat captain and pay for passage to Taiwan. There were several captains out west who were always looking to bring people east to the USA, and very much liked picking up a return passenger. After the rather tedious – but perfectly uneventful – voyage, he changed his passport and his looks again and chartered a plane to the Seychelles. From the exact message he’d left, Moz would know he’d find him there.

 

He rather liked the Seychelles – alive with tourists wanting privacy and those people who wanted quiet anonymity for their money – and spies. Neal liked spies in that they never wished to make a scene and had no interest in the general public, other LEO's or ‘ordinary criminals’, apparently perceiving them as unimportant. They were a class unto themselves, almost without fail seeing only other spies as of interest. One might conceivably get caught in some atypical crossfire, but that could happen anywhere!

 

He took a sip of his drink and settled back, enjoying the dappled sun under the coconut palms. New York was about to get some of its least pleasant weather. This wasn’t all bad. Lovely place, enough pretty girls to make the view even more delightful, and enough money to enjoy some scuba diving and other entertainments while he waited. Those might distract him from missing June, and that beautiful city and its art and all those things he thought the tracker would give him that had never materialised. Mozzie would be at least six months extracting himself quietly from New York and then bouncing around the globe a bit to lose any tail, but they'd be together again. Of that he had no doubt. One thing being with the FBI had taught Neal Caffrey, brilliant conman **:** patience. He and Mozzie and June would get together again.

 

He wondered, with that detachment that the separation of many thousands of miles of land and ocean brings, if Booth had been pulled from the car unscathed; if Peter had ‘bought’ his death – probably not, but would be told to shut up and get on with the next case, especially as he wasn’t even a field agent any more – and how delighted Mozzie had been that he’d used one of the many escape plans he’d set up. Years ago he’d made Neal practise, and had timed him, very free with his criticism! When Neal had challenged him, he’d been chagrined to be soundly beaten in the race by his unusual friend!

 

He sat and looked out over the gorgeous beach and light-blue sea. Something was continuing to bother him. What influence did Booth think he had on him, to force him to bring back the diamond once he was out of his sight? Neal hated to believe the guy was just that stupid!

 

_Thank goodness he didn’t actually get some leverage against me. Rebecca knew about Mozzie! Knew I loved him! Used him before – and worse **:** Rebecca knew about June! If Booth had taken Mozzie or June, I’d have torn the FBI building down to it’s foundations to free either of them. _

 

_What a moron._

 

 

 

 

 

_The End_

**Author's Note:**

> The Voice belongs to NBC. I do not own it. Thank you, NBC.


End file.
